It has been one week since I returned from a wilderness journey that changed me in ways I’m still trying to understand. For several days, everything I needed fit into a blue barrel and a green dry bag—shelter, clothes, food, and a few humble essentials. The rest came from the land: wisdom from the water, courage from the trees, and truth from silence. Out there, far from electricity and pavement, life becomes beautifully simple. You wake with the sun and sleep with the stars.

I still remember the books I loved as a child—how they transported me to different worlds, made me dream, and sometimes, made me feel...